Let’s Make Girl STEM Education Outcome-Oriented – Dr. Adutwum

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Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, has underscored the need for the promotion of girls’ Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education ad make it outcome-oriented.

He said it was important for stakeholders to be focused on counselling girls to select STEM-related courses, follow up for them to be offered related courses and track their performances in Senior High Schools (SHS).

Dr. Adutwum, who spoke at the launch of the Promotion of Girls Competency in Mathematics and Science with Gender Responsive Pedagogy” Project, said that was how the major impacts would be measured.

The Project, expected to last for four years, is funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) at a cost of US$ 8,000,000.00 and implemented by the Ghana Education Service (GES).

It targets selected Junior High Schools in 10 Districts in the Eastern and Central Regions of the country.

Dr. Adutwum said the country was no longer interested in the access parity but what the girls did in schools.

He said the secondary school gender parity had improved significantly as a result of the introduction of the Free Senior High School (FSHS).

“… Before FSHS, our parity was about 0.92. This year it moved up to 0.99. It is rare for an African country to get gender parity at the secondary school level,” the Minister added.

Dr. Adutwum noted that the boy’s schools were predominantly the gateway to engineering in the country, therefore, if more girls’ schools were not performing well in science, there would not be a pipeline that would ensure that more girls pursued STEM-related programmes.

He said 12.5 per cent of women were pursuing Engineering in the universities in the country and 18 per cent of Engineering students were women at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The Minister emphasised the need to create an enabling environment for girls to thrive.

“That is why the President has directed that we build more STEM High Schools for girls and we have opened the first, Bosomtwe Girls STEM High School,” the Minister said.

Dr. Adutwum said with the support of the Kuwait Fund, the Government would build two STEM girls’ schools, one in partnership with the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Kpone Kantamanso in the Greater Accra Region and one in the Ashanti Region next year.

Mr. Mooheon Kong, Country Director, KOICA, said the project would support the development of a multi-faceted capacity-building and training programme for mathematics and science teachers, school management and education supervisors in the targeted districts.

He noted that despite the Government’s commitment to strengthening the country’s education system, the lower academic ability of girls in mathematics and science especially at the basic school level continued to be a challenge.

Hence the timely intervention of the Korean government to step in and complement the efforts of the country by identifying the impediments and bridging that gap.

The Country Director said KOICA would assist the country to develop Girls’ STEM education through Korea’s experiences in education.

Mr. Kong called on stakeholders and implementing partners to focus efforts on promoting accountability, community awareness and advocacy to maximize the synergy of all efforts that sought to support the future of adolescent girls.

The Country Director pledged KOICA’s unwavering support to the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, and other key stakeholders of its continuous support and in all future partnerships.

Mr Lim Jung-Taek, South Korean Ambassador, said the project represented another milestone in the development cooperation between Korea and the Government of Ghana.

He reiterated the critical role education played in South Korea’s rapid socio-economic development since the early 1950s and commended the Government’s massive investments to improve the education sector.

KOICA was established in 1991 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea as a governmental organisation to implement the Korean Government’s Official Development Assistance (ODA).

KOICA Ghana has been supporting and implementing developmental programmes in Ghana in Public Health, Agricultural, Rural Development, Education, and Governance.

By: GNA